The Warren

The effect of the third Jager was just kicking in, the room was just beginning to tilt a little from side to side and the faces of the people around me were losing their sharpness. My thoughts were hazy but that didn’t stop my mouth from trying to vocalise them; blurred thoughts producing slurred words. In my drunken mind I was some kind of raconteur perched on a bar stool holding court  and waxing lyrical to this ramshackle group of strangers.  In reality I was a pale shadow of a man, mumbling inaudibly to fellow shadows, too drunk to notice that they couldn’t understand.  

The room was a reddish orange blur of artificial lights and cigarette smoke, I looked around for Daniela but couldn’t see her, no bother I thought, I’m fine, she’s probably in the toilet or something. But when, 20 minutes later I still couldn’t see the only person who knew where my hotel was, I began to get a little worried. The little part of my brain that I keep sober for exactly this type of emergency  woke from its hibernation and started thinking.

‘Where’s Daniela.’ My clearer thoughts leading to clearer voice.

‘Daniela? she went off with Ted.’ said one of the drunks in front of me whose name I might have known briefly back in less boozy times.

It took a while for the news to sink in. I was in a bar that was in one of the many side streets in the warren known as Kadikoy.  My hotel was in another side street somewhere on the Asian side of Istanbul but god knows where. We’d walked, up and down and round and round on the way here, me following Daniela like a sheep. She was the only person who knew for sure where the hotel was and she was gone.

‘Does anyone no where Hotel Gila is?’ I asked hopefully, but the ensemble who had seemed so rapt by my words just moments ago had lost interest.

I was a little bit panicky now and very drunk, even that sober part of my brain was a little tipsy. The thought of not having a bed to sleep in was making my bed seem even more inviting. I had to fight off this growing panic attack and focus. Maybe if I saw the streets that small tipsy part of my brain would sober up and help me retrace my steps. I staggered off the stool and headed for the street outside.

I vaguely remembered we came down the hill to the pub so I trudged my weary body up the incline, and then turned left sure that we had come from that particular side street. The relatively fresher air was making my mind clearer now, I recognised a shop, a restaurant a car park, yes I was on the right track, a left and then a right and I definitely recognised this street. Down to the end and then … and then what? Left or right? I screwed my eyes tight shut trying to visual the journey there but it was no use, I’d reached the end of my memory.

I plumped for left, and staggered up another 20 metres or so. And there to my utter relief was a sign, 'Hotel Gila', my hotel. Somehow my homing device had worked and I had dragged my tired body towards its bed.  But something else looked familiar about this street. I peered up the road through my drunken eyes and sure enough there it was, 3 doors up the very bar I had tumbled out of 15 minutes earlier.